[1] He founded Al Marijah Art Atelier, and through his extensive work and writings, he inspired the next generation of artists in the United Arab Emirates.

"[2] After a foundation year studying in Leamington Spa, Sharif enrolled at the Byam Shaw School of Art (today part of Central Saint Martins) in 1980 and came under the influence of artist Tam Giles, head of the Abstract and Experimental Department.

This led to an interest in British Constructionism and particularly Kenneth Martin’s notion of ‘chance and order’, which Sharif developed into his own ‘Semi-system’ way of working – based around arbitrary or over-elaborate systems that are then followed to create works, often on a grid, from ‘Body and Squares’ (1983) to meticulously recording sentences read in a newspaper at points along a journey to Sharjah, to long sequences of black lines showing transformations of a line within a square.

[6] From the early ‘80s, Sharif began creating assemblages from cheap, mass-produced materials or items sourced from the UAE’s markets.

Similarly, "as illustrations of meaningless [sic], taking Duchampian philosophy to heart, they were crafted from commonplace materials, cut, bound or tied together with rope or wire, and thus stripped of their original function.

"[7] His subsequent assemblages have incorporated coir, rope, copper wire, readymade domestic products, a crutch, newspapers dipped in glue and papier-mache.

"[8] In 2006, Sharif released an essay titled ‘Weaving’, which detailed the ideas that first initiated these objects, responding to what he calls a "vulgar market mentality that flooded shops with consumer goods".

I inject my works with a realism that exposes this socio-political economic monster, allowing people a chance to recognise the danger of over indulgence in this form of negative consumption.

In 2014, Sharif began working with mass-produced images – bundling together printouts, glossy magazines and pages from books, as well as illustrations from a dictionary recreated at an exaggerated scale in iron and ‘woven’ together as assemblage.

Subsequently he participated in group shows at, amongst other venues, Whitechapel Gallery, London, New Museum, New York, and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

A monograph of his career, Hassan Sharif Experiments & Objects 1979-2011, was curated by Catherine David and Mohammed Kazem at Qasr Al Hosn, Abu Dhabi, in 2011.